Not a fan

I do not approve of myself waking up early, and I have even greater disdain for the fact that I decide to "take advantage" of this early awakening to go and do some excercise. I am not amused.

I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera yesterday and judging by the first line, I think it's going to be a great read:

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the
fate of unrequited love."

Sounds perfect.

I stepped on something spikey...

So last night I went out with some friends for coffee and icecream by the beach. It was very nice until I stepped on something spikey in the sand.The bottom of my foot is covered in these little dots now. It turned out the be a puffer fish or something and now my foot is very owie. At least, it is when I use it for things like walking and such.

Speaking of walking, the coffee actually worked last night and I didn't get to sleep until about 2am. Grr. Double grr is that I woke up at 7:20am. Guess who's in a good mood? So, since I was awake I thought I'd better make use of the early start and begin my new excercise regime. I haven't done any physical activity since uni ended and I stopped walking to class (and even by the end of uni I was driving a lot due to my inability to be punctual). I haven't gained any weight, but the fat has redistributed itself and it's not looking good. Lol. I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that I have been in a bad, bad mood and I have been eating a lot of takeout. A LOT of takeout.

So anyway, the walk. I managed to last for about 15 minutes. The longest 15 minutes of my life. It was just so hot - I obviously hadn't woken up early enough. And I forgot how hilly this area is. Oh. And I broke into a run at the end which lasted about a minute 'til I got to my door. I didn't mean to run! It's just that I needed to cross a road and there were cars coming so I decided to just go anyway and ran across... and then I couldn't figure out how to stop. It was horrid. When I got home I collapsed and died.

RICH, I tells ya!

So, two of my Twilight auctions have ended with the following results:
Twilight calendar: bought: $20 sold: $78
Twilight boxset: bought: $92 sold: $199

Total profit: $165.

Last month's phone bill that was so big I never bothered paying: $197. Oops. So yeah, not so rich any more. The money will be going towards that. But it was tres exciting in the meanwhile. (note the use of the word tres - doesn't it show my worldliness and ability to switch between languages? Doesn't it make me sound a million times better than I actually am? Wouldn't the word very have been sufficient?)

I still have one more calendar that will end tomorrow, and that's currently at $50. I'm pretty pleased with all that.

On another note, I'm going to do something that I don't normally do because what I saw this afternoon has really stuck with me. Although I am possibly the bitchiest person in the world, for the last 4 years or so I've tried not to make comments on the clothes people wear for the following reasons:

• I understand that not everyone has an expendible income that they can fritter away on clothes.
• Not everyone has access to certain clothes.
• Not everyone feels the need to put effort into what they are wearing
• AND ABOVE ALL I'm pretty sure that I am the least most suitable person to comment on what others are wearing, because I, more than anyone, are always dressed incorrectly for a situation, or just cannot be bovvered. And I'm pretty sure that people must think such bad things about what I wear that I try to not make judgements on others in some odd way of trying the stem the effects of karma...

With that in mind, I want to comment on a teenage girl I saw today. Yes, I'm a terrible person, making a comment about someone during the worst, most uncomfortable years of her life. It's just that this girl sort of typified every teenage girl at the moment.

Firstly, she was wearing a very pretty dress and a cardigan. Not bad, eh? Except, that it was sooooo muggy today, that the cardigan was probably worn because she might have been uncomfortable with herself in that dress, as I notice my little sister does all the bloody time (Mary, if you're not comfortable wearing that, don't buy it! Although, you just cannot communicate this with a teenage girl). Except, I think she should have been less uncomfortable with her top half, and more uncomfortable with the fact that her dress was so short I could see what she ate for breakfast. Seriously, I was so uncomfortable with its length. Yes, I understand, summer+current trends= rising hemlines. But this was one slight lean away from me knowing where she buys her underwear.

When did people become confused about the difference between a dress and a long top? My sister did it once and did not hear the end of it from me. Her excuse: but I'm wearing tights with it. First of all, they are 40 denier stockings. Secondly, I DON'T CARE. Her friend the other day did the same thing. We went to pick her up (in St. Claire. Bloody hell, why does Mary know people who live all the way out there? Yes, I'm suburbist) and she comes out of the house wearing a long top and shoes. But you can't say anything because they are at that age where you know nothing and they know everything.

How Harry Potter of me!

You'd think I'd have noticed this a long time ago, right? WRONG! Last night I was putting moisturiser on when I noticed that I have a two centimetre scar on my forehead?! How do you go 23 years without noticing something like that? So I called my grandma asking if I'd ever hit my head as a child (it would explain a lot of things) and she couldn't think of any time, then I called my mum and after lots of thinking she's like, that does sound familiar... I think you were 2 years old and you fell and cut your head. What a terrible mother!

So anyway, I now have a new(ly found) scar on my head to go with the random bruises that dot my body. They are literally dots, slightly smaller than a 5 cent coin, all at various stages of fading, all randomly placed, all very annoying!

Wasted Day, or just a Lazy Day

Today I finally had a day off and it's been crap. Lol. Yesterday I only worked a half day and it was fabulous: woke up in a good mood, ate a croissant, read travel magazines, luxuriated. Today I went to bed reasonably early considering I had today off (10:30/11ish), woke up at about 8:30 after a terrible sleep, and then did nothing all day. I lay in bed and watched Race to Dakar and that is all. Trent came round at 2pm to give me a Christmas card to my extreme embarrassment because I was still in my bloody pjs with no sign of getting out of them. I'm still in them, in fact. I was thinking of inviting everyone round for dinner tonight but I'm too lazy to get out of my room, let alone cook!

Meanwhile, I've been cheering myself up by going through travel magazines and getting ideas for next year. I've also borrowed Europe on a Shoestring from work to really get started.

Reading...

So, nerd that I am, I watch the ABC's First Tuesday Bookclub each month, or rather, I download the vodcasts and watch those. I just finished watching the latest show and was so excited that next month they'll be reading Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Was I writing in this blog when I read Grapes this year? Too bad if this is just repetition. It's the book Nonno said was the greatest book he had ever read, and he used to read a lot, so that's saying something. Since I was 15 and first read Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for school, Nonno had been on my case to read Grapes, but as soon as I saw its size I was immediately turned off. I'm so sad that I waited until after he died to finally read it because I would have loved to discuss it with him and tell him how fantastic the book was. Is it weird that often I love books that have torn my heart out and left me feeling desolate? Cos that's what this book did to me. But I basically judge a good book on whether it has left an impression on me, and this one totally did.

It's funny (not ha-ha funny, but ironic/strange funny) that I can see echoes of what happened in the book, set in the Great Depression, in today's uncertain financial climate. I was watching Deutsche Welle (because I'm weird and really enjoy this German news and business news programme) and they were saying how in the US over 500 000 people have claimed unemployment benefits for the first time.

Played a cute game called the Germanizer. Unfortunately, I'm just not German enough!

Weirdest

Had the weirdest dream last night and I blame work. For the last half hour or so before I left at 11 I had been clearing and sorting out the bays we keep some of the books in out the back sort room. I'm incredibly anal so it was done in a particular way (until it was time to go home so things were quickly shoved in). So my dream was basically me sorting things. As such, I've had a terrible sleep because I was constantly alert in my dreams.

Meanwhile, something I've been thinking about for awhile is things I'll do when I graduate (in 2011) and get a real, grown-up job. And so:

THINGS I'LL DO WHEN I'M A GROWN-UP:

• Get matching wooden hangers for my clothes. It's a very adult thing to do - Vogue said so!
• Have a library in my house, or, failing that, have one wall that's just books.
• Have a dog.
• OWN a house, but that's not for a very long time after graduation and after living overseas for a bit. Really I only want to own a house so I can buy a dog.
• Host dinner parties. With courses. And I'll refer to them as soirees. Even though for the first 3 years after graduation I'll probably be stuck out in the country...
• I'll be one of those people that not only gets things drycleaned, but will have a "good relationship" with my drycleaner, as they say is imperative in all the fashion magazines. I'll even be able to recommend my drycleaner to people. "Oh, have you tried _____? They're fabulous! They saved that dress of mine..."
• I'll learn more Italian. Maybe I'll even go to Italy and learn over there like the woman is doing in the book I'm reading...
• I'll be terribly up-to-date on current affairs and such and make comments like, "Isn't it just awful about what's going on in ________?"
• I'll have lived in another country... again. I'm thinking England because of the opportunities for Australian teachers, but maybe I should go somewhere completely new, like Canada.

That's all I can think of for now. I think it just boils down to me wanting to be pretentious and smug. Cannot wait.

Chasing Paper

So, for those not in the know, I'm going to be spending these holidays working. The End. I've basically been working since the 27th November and it's not letting up until Christmas Day. And each week I'll have to be travelling down to Sydney to work with Stephanie for my mum. I went down last week straight after work on Wednesday which finished at 11pm so I got there late and had barely any sleep at all and worked heaps. I had to stay there until Saturday because I had been asked to work Saturday. I hadn't asked how many hours I would be needed for, but when I got there at 3pm it turned out it was just for 2 and a half hours. It was so not worth it. I'll probably get $80 for that time, but could have potentially made more from Borders... that's if I was given a full day, but who can say? As it is, I seem to be getting nowhere with my money situation. So far everything's gone on bills and rent. My Germany savings are still somewhere around the nowhere mark. In fact, going down to Sydney for Stephanie only earnt me $300, minus about $30 in petrol, and just the general exhaustion that came with it, coupled with the fact that Steph's mum just called me to confirm my hours last week, meaning she hasn't paid me yet, and at the earliest I'll get the money on Friday. Grrr.

Meanwhile, seeing as I like to make myself miserable, I'm reading When In Rome. There's something so sweet and sour about reading travel memoirs: I love to read about people's experiences and hope something like that could happen to me, but it's coupled with the knowledge that I'm stuck here reading about it rather than actually doing it...

Oh My!

The ballet!!!

I'm so in love with it.

Jenni and I got all frocked up and eventually got into the city after me having a massive panic about losing my wallet which has now been found ... in my bedroom. How embarrassing! In my defense, my wallet is black, and it was in amidst a big group of Borders bags which have Christmas presents in them, and the bag is also black. DON'T JUDGE ME!

So anyway, we had dinner at a bistro under the Opera House and then went in and watched Manon. May I just say, WOW. It was so much more than I thought it would be. I was worried that I'd be a little bored, but instead I was enthralled. The story is of a girl who falls in love with a man who doesn't have much money, but her brother wants her to marry a very wealthy man. She's torn between the two and eventually there's a fight culminating in her brother getting killed and Manon being arrested as a prostitute. She is deported to America with her not-wealthy lover and gaoled, and there she catches the gaoler's eye who tries to give her gifts, when he is killed by the lover. Two two escape to the swamps of Louisiana where Manon dies.

My favourite part was when Manon's brother, Lescaut, was drunk at a party and did his drunken solo and a drunken duet with his mistress. It was so funny - seeing this mixture of grace and slosh. :) I also thought the ending was so effective when the two were in the swap and behind them, through the smoke and almost dream-like/montage-like, the various characters they had met through the play appeared and moved through the mist. Absolutely beautiful. I can't wait til I can see my next ballet!

In other news, I got home at about midday today and was eating lunch when I thought I'd better check when I start work today. Yeah. I was meant to start at 9. Awkward. Called them and settled it that I would go in at two, and they were fine. Crisis averted!

Also, check this out:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4

For some reason they've disabled embedding, but that's cool. It's called "Jizz in My Pants". Not sure if I like this one better or "Dick in a Box".

On being a nanna

So it's 8:43pm and I'm forcing myself to stay awake so as not to be a total nanna. I've already napped today, and in my defense, I did work (for two and a half hours, consisting of me watching The Muppets Take Manhattan and The Muppets Movie) and I did drive for an hour and a half. Very difficult day.

Everyone moved out yesterday, so it's just me and Dong, who isn't here on weekends, so tonight it's just me. Kind of loving the solitude at the moment. Although, I came home tonight to find the house smelling absolutely rotten. Obviously a combination of the house being shut up in this heat, and I really do believe this, but the fact that Miranda's old room is open. MY GOD THE SMELL. I had to go in there and open the window wide open in the hopes that it airs out. I remember one time when I really needed to print something and she let me use hers (in return for me dropping her and her friend later than night at the bus stop), I went into her room for the first time and nearly gagged. She never used to open her window, and seeing as she spent all of her time in there, you can only image how rank it smelt.

Now the whole house smells like that. So glad she's gone.

I got my exchange reference from Patrick, my creative writing tutor, and it was GLOWING! Loves it.

Sarah was the only one of my 30+ students to obtain a High Distinction in what is perhaps one of the more challenging subjects for students in that the assessment tasks are a combination o traditional academic essays and the student's original creative work ... she communicates with ease and confidence, affirms comments by her fellow students, and demonstrates a willingness to extend discussion.

Yes, I talk too much. It's worked in my favour. :P But I'm a bit shocked about my actual results though. I was definitely not one of the stronger writers in the class, so it's odd to find I'm the only one with a HD. Hey man, I'm not complaining! Obviously, my story loosely based on the erotic masseuse I met in New York came through for me. Now I no longer need to regret declining her offer to make some money while I was in NYC, cos I've gotten something out of her.

On another note, I love this line from Trespass Mag:

The Jonas Brothers aren’t breaking up. Apparently someone, somewhere, thought they would. When they’re not using their purity rings to summon Captain Planet, I think their father has them on a pretty tight leash…

Love the image of them summoning Captain Planet, although I'm sure their purity rings would summon someone like... Jesus?